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Auditors Fault Pentagon Sorting of Biggest Bioweapon Threats

A participant in a Marine Corps-led biodefense drill moves through an Amtrak train in New York City in 2012. Congressional investigators said the Defense Department is not following its own policy to regularly reconsider its list of top biological-weapon threats.

Aud­it­ors say the De­fense De­part­ment is not fol­low­ing its own pro­ced­ures for guard­ing against “po­ten­tially cata­stroph­ic” bio­lo­gic­al strikes.

Pentagon rules re­quire the agency each year to re­vis­it its list of top bio­lo­gic­al-weapon threats, with an eye to pos­sibly re­shuff­ling the or­der of agents deemed most dan­ger­ous to its mil­it­ary per­son­nel and ci­vil­ians, the con­gres­sion­al Gov­ern­ment Ac­count­ab­il­ity Of­fice said in a re­port is­sued on Thursday.

“Yet, [the De­fense De­part­ment] does not fol­low its es­tab­lished pro­cess for up­dat­ing its bio­lo­gic­al threat pri­or­it­ies,” aud­it­ors wrote in their as­sess­ment.

Fail­ing to reg­u­larly weigh the re­l­at­ive risks posed by vari­ous weapon can­did­ates, they said, makes it un­clear wheth­er the United States is pur­su­ing med­ic­al treat­ments for “the most ser­i­ous and likely bio­lo­gic­al threats.”

The De­fense De­part­ment backed the re­port’s find­ings, ac­cord­ing to a let­ter from An­drew Weber, the Pentagon’s as­sist­ant sec­ret­ary for nuc­le­ar, chem­ic­al, and bio­lo­gic­al de­fense pro­grams.

The Pentagon would re­view its biode­fense dir­ect­ives “to en­sure they align with cur­rent … plan­ning pro­cesses,” Weber wrote last week.

"Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was spotted entering a congressional office building on Tuesday morning for what a committee aide told The Daily Beast was a meeting with the leaders of the House Foreign Affairs committee and relevant staff about his time working in the Trump administration. ... Tillerson’s arrival at the Capitol was handled with extreme secrecy. No media advisories or press releases were sent out announcing his appearance. And he took a little noticed route into the building in order to avoid being seen by members of the media."